


Hanahaki

by akachankami



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Drama, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Short One Shot, can you believe me???, very drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 14:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20155363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akachankami/pseuds/akachankami
Summary: Love blooms like a  flower when you least expect it, but when it’s unrequited it blooms in your heart. Literally.Roots spreading through your lungs and it’s hard to breathe, flowers taking the space where you used to live. And it kills.





	Hanahaki

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4 of the hayffie summer week: cliché trope cove!
> 
> I don't even know how I found out about this but apparently 'hanahaki' (literally 'retching flowers') is a fairly common trope among asian fandoms (of course) and it seemed... fitting with the current theme

Consumption is reaping souls faster than the Capitol ever could. The odds are not looking good for the names on the handful of folded papers left in the bowls, a cacophony of cicadas following the footsteps of each funeral procession.

_ He was brought back from the brink, Haymitch _ , her mother tells them one night after visiting a twelve year old dying boy. Sometimes there are moments her mother’s mind wanders places neither she, nor Prim, can follow. _ He was twentyfive, _ she says.

_ There was blood _.

There was dismissal too. It was almost too late when Greasy Sae called her out to the Hob because Haymitch was coughing up his lungs and leaves and soft pinkish petals in his soup.

_ Hanahaki _disease. Hopeless and broken, and he could still fall so deep. Of course it had to be brutal.

But there was nothing they could do, they didn’t know whose unrequited love was killing him. The mayor was able to contact the Capitol somehow, it was the only way.

_ They sent the escort to take him _.

_ Effie? _

Her mother nods, pensive._ It was the first time we’ve ever seen her. But she wasn’t an escort then... She had pink hair, I remember your father’s face when… _ And that’s where they lose her. _ Oh, he was brought back from the brink _, her mother repeats.

What were the odds Haymitch Abernathy surviving the Hunger Games and almost dying of love...

* * *

_ It was a common procedure in the Capitol _, an uncharacteristically hesitant Effie tells Prim. Taking away the roots in his heart and clearing his lungs removed the infection, along with any residual feeling he might have had for the person causing the disease in the first place.

He doesn’t remember having been that madly in love. That’s why no one ever speaks about it._ And no one ever should _, Effie warns.

Only Effie knows that’s half of a truth.

He would have been fine without surgery had he believed her. _ Hanahaki _ is only deadly if the depth of your affection is unanswered and unmatched. And she did love him. She swore, she begged, she vowed... 

But,_ oh happiness _. Too blissful an outlook for a self deprecating drunkard seeking penance. Of course dying of love seemed like a better way to take himself out than wasting away in alcohol for years.

But she couldn’t let him. Even now, squirming and sighing at his digs, she doesn’t regret it. She swore. Then begged. Then vowed, but in the end she couldn’t let him go, even after all of his memories of their summer of _ fortuitous _ encounters and _ foolish _ promises were gone. So she became an escort.

_ He _ might not remember but _ she _ does.


End file.
